Chapter 8: Delivering quality

What do we want? What are the benefits and the rewards? What will it cost? What are the risks? These and other major questions are on the minds of everyone involved in infrastructure projects. There is nothing new in these questions – it has always been like this.

So what has to change? We suggest that our understanding of some of the basic terms such as quality, value, risks, opportunities and resilience, and their underpinning through ethics, social skills, teamwork and leadership needs clarifying and deepening if we are to reap the benefits of doing it differently. For example, how can we know when we are adding value (Figure 8.1)? We certainly will not know if we do not have a clear idea of what values are. The purpose of this chapter is to help clear some of the fog around the issue of how added value relates to the willingness to pay of clients. We need to recognise our interdependence – nothing adds cost more easily than constant changes of mind by clients and regulators.